I thought this would be helpful in our contemplation and application of what keeps us vibrant, healthy and spiritually attuned. It's an old article but one well worth re-visiting and applying:
A SURPRISE LAW OF HEALING
by Catherine Ponder
A puzzled lady said to a friend, "I can't understand it. I have the nicest neighbor who is dying of cancer. It seems so unfair, because she is one of the kindest, gentlest people I know."
The friend replied, "She may seem kind and gentle, but if she is dying of cancer, then there is some old negative emotion that is literally consuming the cells of her body. There is probably someone she hates."
When the puzzled visitor replied, "No, that cannot be," she was advised: "Search further and you will find there is something or someone this person needs to forgive. Always where there is a health problem, there is a forgiveness problem."
Later the mystery was cleared up. The one in doubt reported: "You were right! I learned quite by accident that this neighbor has a relative whom she violently hates. They have not spoken in thirty years."
Though Jesus pointed it out twenty centuries ago (see Luke 5), the surprise law of healing is still a surprise to most people. It is the law of forgiveness. It is an immutable mental and spiritual law that when there is a health problem, there is a forgiveness problem. You must forgive if you
want to be permanently healed. When you bypass forgiveness, you bypass health.
The surprise is in how many people try to find their way back to health without first cleansing their emotions of the cause of their disease. Health cannot be accepted by a body that is filled with the poisons generated by unforgiveness.
The nature of cancer may indicate some secret resentment or bitterness. Though one has been outwardly sweet and submissive, she has been inwardly grieved, hurt, intolerant, and severely critical. As in all forms of disease, unwise living habits are usually indicated, too. That
is the blessing of learning how to think right. As you employ proper thinking, you unconsciously relate it to proper rest, exercise, diet and other health habits.
This act of forgiveness dissolves the negative attitudes and memories that are lodged in the conscious and subconscious levels of your mind. Since your mind is located right within your body, your thoughts and emotions occupy space in your cells, bloodstream, and organs of your
physical being. Unless a mental and emotional cleansing takes place, such negative emotions fasten your health problems to you.
In spite of advances in scientific and medical research, no pill has yet been created that can cause a sick person to do the first thing she should do, metaphysically, toward gaining permanent health: forgive. Yet there is nothing unpleasant or even embarrassing about the act of forgiveness. To forgive does not mean that you have to bow and scrape to those whom you feel have offended you. To forgive literally mans to "give up" that which you should not have held onto in the first place! To forgive means to "replace" the ill feeling, to gain a sense of peace and harmony again.
In most instances, you need make no outer contact with those involved in your forgiveness act, unless an occasion arises that demands it. If such an occasion does arise, it will be a part of the healing process. As you change your attitudes toward others, they will unconsciously respond
by changing their attitudes toward you.
Your first act of forgiveness may not bring the changed attitude and peace that you seek, though it will bring improvement. You did not build up those resentments with one strong negative thought. Neither will one strong positive thought sweep them all away. Sometimes you have to persist.
You may not even be aware of what or whom you need to forgive in the past or present.
It is not necessary that you know, although often it will be revealed to you, as you invoke forgiveness. The only requirement is that you willingly speak words of forgiveness, and let those words do their cleansing work.
There is a simple way to practice forgiveness. Daily meditate upon and speak these words: "All that has offended me, I forgive. Whatever has made me resentful, bitter, unhappy, I forgive. Within and without, I forgive. Things past, things present, things future, I forgive."
One woman learned of the healing law of forgiveness, and began to use it, hoping for improvement of her health. For an entire year, she daily decreed: "I fully and freely forgive. I loose and let go. I let go and let God do His perfect work of healing in my mind, body, and affairs." When her long-standing health problem faded away, her doctor said it was a miracle.
She knows it was the miracle of forgiveness. At the end of that year, she also received another miracle - a rather large inheritance from one of the people she had just spent a year forgiving!
Resentment, anger, and condemnation, the desire to "get even" or to see someone punished or hurt, are things that rot your soul and tear down your health. You must forgive injuries and hurts of the past and present, not so much for the other person's sake, but for your own. Hurt or hate of any kind scars the soul and works illness in the body. The illness will not be fully healed while you continue to remain unforgiving.
A woman discovered a lump in her breast. Instead of frantically rushing out to negatively discuss it with others, she decided to analyze the situation and pray for guidance. She realized that a hard condition in the body indicated a corresponding hard condition in the mind.
She thought, "What hard thoughts of unforgiveness, resentment, condemnation, or anger am I holding? What or whom do I need to forgive?" The answer did not come immediately, and she continued every day to meditate and ask: "What hard attitudes do I need to release and give up,
in order to be forgiven this condition?"
In meditation one day she found herself thinking about her husband and a woman with whom he had been involved five years previously. She realized that she still held hard thoughts about that distressing period. For the "other woman" she decreed: "I freely forgive you. I loose you and let
you go. It is done. It is finished forever." For her husband she mentally said, "I freely forgive you. You are now a faithful, loving husband, and we have a wonderful marriage.
Only good has come from that experience." She repeated these words daily for several weeks. One day she realized that the lump in her breast was gone; she never knew when it had disappeared.
When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free. It is easier to forgive those you are inclined to condemn, resent or hate when you
remember this: They have not really failed or disappointed you. They have not even let you down. They may have stumbled while crossing your pathway. But, in reality, they cannot keep your good from you.
Often people try to shrug off the need for forgiveness: "That is not my problem. I have nothing to forgive." If you have a problem, you have something to forgive. If you experience pain, you have a need to forgive. If you find yourself in unpleasant circumstances, you have a need to forgive.
It you find yourself in debt, you have a need to forgive. Where there is suffering, unhappiness, confusion, lack, or misery of any sort, there is a need to forgive.
There is an old proverb: "He who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass." When your good is delayed, it is time to forgive. Often everything stands still, and there is a deadlock, until forgiveness is released into the situation by you. Forgiveness begins with
the one who recognized the offense. When you get the offense out of your own heart, you have forgiven.
A young couple had long sought to adopt a child. They were a healthy, happy, prosperous, intelligent couple; yet adoption agencies had constantly turned them down. It was a baffling problem. One day the wife learned that when your good is delayed, it indicates a need for forgiveness. As she began to daily practice forgiveness, decreeing: "I fully and freely forgive anyone or anything that needs forgiveness in my past or present", old resentments, prejudices, hurts, anger and unhappy memories came to her attention. To each she said, "I forgive you and release you." A sense of peace was established. Later she learned of a new adoption agency; contact with them led to the adoption of a lovely baby. Forgiveness can sweep aside all that has delayed you in your race toward good.
Along with forgiving others, it is also necessary to forgive yourself. Self-condemnation leads to dire results in matters of health and finances. Are you unforgiving of your circumstances? An unhappy childhood? The loss of or neglect by a parent? The loss of some material blessing? Do you blame your losses, ill health, or other problems on God, instead of realizing the problems are self-
inflicted?
Charles Fillmore, the Kansas City businessman who personally experienced a dramatic healing and cofounded the Unity movement, once gave a healing formula that has inspired millions. Here is a mental treatment that Fillmore said is guaranteed to cure every ill: Sit for half an hour every night and mentally forgive everyone against whom you have any ill will or antipathy. If you fear or if you are prejudiced against anyone, even an animal, mentally ask forgiveness of it and send it thoughts of love. If you have accused anyone, if you have criticized or gossiped about anyone, withdraw your words by asking that person, in the silence, to forgive you. If you have had a falling out with friends or relatives, do everything in your power to end the separation. See all things and all persons as they really are--pure spirit--and send them your strongest thoughts of love. Do not go to bed any night feeling that you have any enemy in this world.
A housewife had large painful lumps under both arms. She feared medical examination, realizing it would probably produce an incurable diagnosis and a major operation. Her meditation for healing was of no avail even though she had learned of the healing law of forgiveness, and spoke words of forgiveness toward others. but when she began to speak words of forgiveness for others towards her, something dramatic occurred. The lumps under her arms, with their attendant swelling and pain, began to subside, and finally disappeared.
You have the power to deliberately speak words that will cause others to forgive you. A fine statement to use for this is: "I am now forgiven by everyone of the past and present that needs to forgive me. I am now positively forgiven by everyone."
You can be assured that:
Forgiveness is all powerful.
Forgiveness can heal your ills.
Forgiveness can make the weak strong.
Forgiveness can make the cowardly courageous.
Forgiveness can make the ignorant wise.
Forgiveness can make the mournful happy.
Forgiveness can unblock whatever has stood between you and your good.
Let it.
A prayer for forgiveness by Emmett Fox:
"I fully and freely forgive ___________; I loose him and let him go. I
completely forgive the whole business in question. As far as I am
concerned, it is finished forever. I give to Christ my burden of resentment.
He is free now, and I am free too. I wish him well in every phase of his life.
That incident is finished. The truth has set us both free. I thank God."
A SURPRISE LAW OF HEALING
by Catherine Ponder
A puzzled lady said to a friend, "I can't understand it. I have the nicest neighbor who is dying of cancer. It seems so unfair, because she is one of the kindest, gentlest people I know."
The friend replied, "She may seem kind and gentle, but if she is dying of cancer, then there is some old negative emotion that is literally consuming the cells of her body. There is probably someone she hates."
When the puzzled visitor replied, "No, that cannot be," she was advised: "Search further and you will find there is something or someone this person needs to forgive. Always where there is a health problem, there is a forgiveness problem."
Later the mystery was cleared up. The one in doubt reported: "You were right! I learned quite by accident that this neighbor has a relative whom she violently hates. They have not spoken in thirty years."
Though Jesus pointed it out twenty centuries ago (see Luke 5), the surprise law of healing is still a surprise to most people. It is the law of forgiveness. It is an immutable mental and spiritual law that when there is a health problem, there is a forgiveness problem. You must forgive if you
want to be permanently healed. When you bypass forgiveness, you bypass health.
The surprise is in how many people try to find their way back to health without first cleansing their emotions of the cause of their disease. Health cannot be accepted by a body that is filled with the poisons generated by unforgiveness.
The nature of cancer may indicate some secret resentment or bitterness. Though one has been outwardly sweet and submissive, she has been inwardly grieved, hurt, intolerant, and severely critical. As in all forms of disease, unwise living habits are usually indicated, too. That
is the blessing of learning how to think right. As you employ proper thinking, you unconsciously relate it to proper rest, exercise, diet and other health habits.
This act of forgiveness dissolves the negative attitudes and memories that are lodged in the conscious and subconscious levels of your mind. Since your mind is located right within your body, your thoughts and emotions occupy space in your cells, bloodstream, and organs of your
physical being. Unless a mental and emotional cleansing takes place, such negative emotions fasten your health problems to you.
In spite of advances in scientific and medical research, no pill has yet been created that can cause a sick person to do the first thing she should do, metaphysically, toward gaining permanent health: forgive. Yet there is nothing unpleasant or even embarrassing about the act of forgiveness. To forgive does not mean that you have to bow and scrape to those whom you feel have offended you. To forgive literally mans to "give up" that which you should not have held onto in the first place! To forgive means to "replace" the ill feeling, to gain a sense of peace and harmony again.
In most instances, you need make no outer contact with those involved in your forgiveness act, unless an occasion arises that demands it. If such an occasion does arise, it will be a part of the healing process. As you change your attitudes toward others, they will unconsciously respond
by changing their attitudes toward you.
Your first act of forgiveness may not bring the changed attitude and peace that you seek, though it will bring improvement. You did not build up those resentments with one strong negative thought. Neither will one strong positive thought sweep them all away. Sometimes you have to persist.
You may not even be aware of what or whom you need to forgive in the past or present.
It is not necessary that you know, although often it will be revealed to you, as you invoke forgiveness. The only requirement is that you willingly speak words of forgiveness, and let those words do their cleansing work.
There is a simple way to practice forgiveness. Daily meditate upon and speak these words: "All that has offended me, I forgive. Whatever has made me resentful, bitter, unhappy, I forgive. Within and without, I forgive. Things past, things present, things future, I forgive."
One woman learned of the healing law of forgiveness, and began to use it, hoping for improvement of her health. For an entire year, she daily decreed: "I fully and freely forgive. I loose and let go. I let go and let God do His perfect work of healing in my mind, body, and affairs." When her long-standing health problem faded away, her doctor said it was a miracle.
She knows it was the miracle of forgiveness. At the end of that year, she also received another miracle - a rather large inheritance from one of the people she had just spent a year forgiving!
Resentment, anger, and condemnation, the desire to "get even" or to see someone punished or hurt, are things that rot your soul and tear down your health. You must forgive injuries and hurts of the past and present, not so much for the other person's sake, but for your own. Hurt or hate of any kind scars the soul and works illness in the body. The illness will not be fully healed while you continue to remain unforgiving.
A woman discovered a lump in her breast. Instead of frantically rushing out to negatively discuss it with others, she decided to analyze the situation and pray for guidance. She realized that a hard condition in the body indicated a corresponding hard condition in the mind.
She thought, "What hard thoughts of unforgiveness, resentment, condemnation, or anger am I holding? What or whom do I need to forgive?" The answer did not come immediately, and she continued every day to meditate and ask: "What hard attitudes do I need to release and give up,
in order to be forgiven this condition?"
In meditation one day she found herself thinking about her husband and a woman with whom he had been involved five years previously. She realized that she still held hard thoughts about that distressing period. For the "other woman" she decreed: "I freely forgive you. I loose you and let
you go. It is done. It is finished forever." For her husband she mentally said, "I freely forgive you. You are now a faithful, loving husband, and we have a wonderful marriage.
Only good has come from that experience." She repeated these words daily for several weeks. One day she realized that the lump in her breast was gone; she never knew when it had disappeared.
When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free. It is easier to forgive those you are inclined to condemn, resent or hate when you
remember this: They have not really failed or disappointed you. They have not even let you down. They may have stumbled while crossing your pathway. But, in reality, they cannot keep your good from you.
Often people try to shrug off the need for forgiveness: "That is not my problem. I have nothing to forgive." If you have a problem, you have something to forgive. If you experience pain, you have a need to forgive. If you find yourself in unpleasant circumstances, you have a need to forgive.
It you find yourself in debt, you have a need to forgive. Where there is suffering, unhappiness, confusion, lack, or misery of any sort, there is a need to forgive.
There is an old proverb: "He who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass." When your good is delayed, it is time to forgive. Often everything stands still, and there is a deadlock, until forgiveness is released into the situation by you. Forgiveness begins with
the one who recognized the offense. When you get the offense out of your own heart, you have forgiven.
A young couple had long sought to adopt a child. They were a healthy, happy, prosperous, intelligent couple; yet adoption agencies had constantly turned them down. It was a baffling problem. One day the wife learned that when your good is delayed, it indicates a need for forgiveness. As she began to daily practice forgiveness, decreeing: "I fully and freely forgive anyone or anything that needs forgiveness in my past or present", old resentments, prejudices, hurts, anger and unhappy memories came to her attention. To each she said, "I forgive you and release you." A sense of peace was established. Later she learned of a new adoption agency; contact with them led to the adoption of a lovely baby. Forgiveness can sweep aside all that has delayed you in your race toward good.
Along with forgiving others, it is also necessary to forgive yourself. Self-condemnation leads to dire results in matters of health and finances. Are you unforgiving of your circumstances? An unhappy childhood? The loss of or neglect by a parent? The loss of some material blessing? Do you blame your losses, ill health, or other problems on God, instead of realizing the problems are self-
inflicted?
Charles Fillmore, the Kansas City businessman who personally experienced a dramatic healing and cofounded the Unity movement, once gave a healing formula that has inspired millions. Here is a mental treatment that Fillmore said is guaranteed to cure every ill: Sit for half an hour every night and mentally forgive everyone against whom you have any ill will or antipathy. If you fear or if you are prejudiced against anyone, even an animal, mentally ask forgiveness of it and send it thoughts of love. If you have accused anyone, if you have criticized or gossiped about anyone, withdraw your words by asking that person, in the silence, to forgive you. If you have had a falling out with friends or relatives, do everything in your power to end the separation. See all things and all persons as they really are--pure spirit--and send them your strongest thoughts of love. Do not go to bed any night feeling that you have any enemy in this world.
A housewife had large painful lumps under both arms. She feared medical examination, realizing it would probably produce an incurable diagnosis and a major operation. Her meditation for healing was of no avail even though she had learned of the healing law of forgiveness, and spoke words of forgiveness toward others. but when she began to speak words of forgiveness for others towards her, something dramatic occurred. The lumps under her arms, with their attendant swelling and pain, began to subside, and finally disappeared.
You have the power to deliberately speak words that will cause others to forgive you. A fine statement to use for this is: "I am now forgiven by everyone of the past and present that needs to forgive me. I am now positively forgiven by everyone."
You can be assured that:
Forgiveness is all powerful.
Forgiveness can heal your ills.
Forgiveness can make the weak strong.
Forgiveness can make the cowardly courageous.
Forgiveness can make the ignorant wise.
Forgiveness can make the mournful happy.
Forgiveness can unblock whatever has stood between you and your good.
Let it.
A prayer for forgiveness by Emmett Fox:
"I fully and freely forgive ___________; I loose him and let him go. I
completely forgive the whole business in question. As far as I am
concerned, it is finished forever. I give to Christ my burden of resentment.
He is free now, and I am free too. I wish him well in every phase of his life.
That incident is finished. The truth has set us both free. I thank God."